Takehiro “Take” Ueyama, a Tokyo native, moved to the United States in 1991 to study dance at the Juilliard School in New York City. Upon graduation, he was invited to join the Paul Taylor Dance Company, touring the world with them for eight years. He has also performed repeatedly as a guest artist with Kazuko Hirabayashi Dance Theatre. In 2003, Ueyama debuted his first choreographic work, Tsubasa, performed with fellow Taylor dancers at the McKenna Theatre at SUNY New Paltz, and in 2005 he founded TAKE Dance. Containing both powerful athleticism and traces of his Japanese heritage, his repertoire has been inspired by the beauty in nature, the duality of darkness and light in the universal human condition, and the humanity and compassion in day-to-day living. Ueyama has enjoyed worldwide recognition: his Sakura Sakura was a prizewinner at the International Modern Dance Choreographic Competition in Burgos, Spain, and he was one of four choreographers selected for the 2006 Free to Rep at FSU’s Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography. In 2010, he was the first choreographer to win the S&R Foundation’s prestigious Washington Award. Ueyama received the 2015 Jadin Wong Award for Emerging Asian American choreographer by Asian American Arts Alliance. Ueyama was awarded a 2022 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship Grant. Most recently, he received the 2023 Danse Mirage Foundation’s Choreography grant for his new work Bamboo Dreams.
